The Temple of Yellow Skulls (35 page)

“One of us has to live,” Albanon said. He pulled his hand free from Kri’s. “Keep Raid away from Shara and Uldane,” Albanon said.

The cleric’s expression hardened but he said nothing as he stepped away from Albanon. The wizard twisted to watch him. There was an extra bounce in Kri’s movement. He pushed off from the ground and with virtually no effort leaped almost ten paces.

“No!” bellowed Raid. He dropped his axes and ran at Kri, his big, gnarled hands grabbing for the old man.

He was too late. Kri jumped, bounding easily down the slope of the hill out of reach of the demon. He disappeared from Albanon’s sight, but a moment later the glow of his barrier of light flared, bright even in the afternoon sunlight. Raid roared again and Albanon felt a moment’s relief. With Kri away, Shara, Uldane, and even Splendid would be safe as well.

But Albanon wasn’t. A wolf growled close at hand. A demon hissed. Albanon turned to look up at the beasts and monsters surrounding him. To his surprise, he felt angry rather than scared. He sat back on his heels and glared up at them all. A spell rose in his mind.

“I hope you like your food hot,” he said, “because that’s how you’re going to get me.” He spread his arms, the arcane syllables of the spell sizzling on his tongue—

Heavy hands grabbed his shoulders, spun him around, and hurled him backward on to the ground. Stunned, Albanon stared up at Raid. The demon stomped a foot down into the middle of his chest, driving the air out of his lungs, then dropped to all fours and bent close over him. His teeth clashed less than a hand span from Albanon’s face. One hand rose over his head. Claws flashed in the sun, something red and crystalline caked across their ragged tips.

The Voidharrow.

Now fear seized Albanon. He tried hard to keep it from reaching his face. A swipe of those claws and Raid could tear his life out. A scratch and he would be infected with the Voidharrow’s disease. Albanon knew which he preferred. He clenched his teeth and snarled, “Kill me!”

The raised hand paused. Raid’s red eyes narrowed and searched Albanon’s as if he saw something in them. His wide mouth curled into a cruel smile.

“No,” he said, He looked up at the nearest of the four-armed monsters. “Bring him to Vestapalk.”

V
estapalk’s brutes didn’t eat. If they got their claws on raw meat, they gorged on it, but Tiktag had never seen one simply take a bit of food like any other living thing might have. They consumed, but they didn’t seem to need to eat. Tiktag had even seen one of them trying to devour a tree. He suspected that the creature had stopped only because the tree didn’t scream, struggle, or bleed.

Any beast larger than a mouse that showed itself in the ruins of the Temple of Yellow Skulls became fodder for the soldiers—leaving nothing for Tiktag. Vestapalk didn’t even seem to think about food. Tiktag suspected that his master had passed beyond the need for food, sustained somehow by the Voidharrow.

The need to fill his own belly drove Tiktag into the woods to forage. The first time he left the ruins, he was so hungry that he didn’t even realize until he was back that none of the brutes had come in pursuit of him. He’d assumed that Vestapalk would send someone to retrieve his wyrmpriest if he strayed.
He felt a certain anguish that his master had apparently passed beyond the need for his servant as well. He probably could have left and no one, not even Vestapalk, would have noticed. He could have fled the temple without any consequences.

Or at least without consequences to anything but his own sense of loyalty to Vestapalk. Perhaps his master had passed beyond him, but Tiktag hadn’t passed beyond the dragon. He’d sworn that he’d free his master from whatever the Voidharrow had done to him. He still held hope of finding a way. Stubborn pride held him in the ruins. Except when he needed to eat.

He was in the woods on the evening that Raid returned.

Near the ruins, a lone rabbit had escaped the soldiers’ interest. Tiktag stalked it with the patience of a hunter. He was almost close enough to lunge for it when a hand came down and wrapped around the back of his neck. His yell startled the rabbit. It went darting away while Tiktag was lifted into the air and turned face to misshapen face with Raid.

“You’re still here?” Raid asked with a sneer.

Anger overcame the wyrmpriest’s fear. “I serve Vestapalk,” he said.

“Vestapalk doesn’t need you.” Raid opened his hand and let Tiktag fall.

The wyrmpriest caught himself before he tumbled to the ground and glared at Raid. In the days since he had vowed to save Vestapalk from himself, he’d watched the dragon closely, looking for something that might turn his master back the way he had been. Raid and his fierce new appearance were just reminders of his failure to find any hint of what he should be doing to help his master. That Raid should even think he deserved a place in the dragon’s service was infuriating.

“I have been with Vestapalk since before his transformation,” Tiktag said defiantly. “I have watched over him when he was weak. I stand by him because of who he is, not what he can offer me.”

Raid laughed without humor. “You think you know who he is?”

“He is my master. He is my dragon.”

“He’s more than a dragon now, just as I’m more than a man. You have no place with him anymore, kobold.”

“I have more place here than you do.” Tiktag lifted his head. “You should not be here. Vestapalk commanded you to stay away and lay a trap for his enemies.”

A smile touched Raid’s face. “I did.” He gestured and a mixed band of red-eyed wolves and four-armed brutes moved out of the trees.

Two of the brutes pushed someone along with them. A hood made from a sack covered his head, blinding him. His hands were tied behind his back and he stumbled as he walked. The mud and grass that stained his blue robes from knees to chest showed where he had fallen. Many times. He staggered with exhaustion.

The eladrin who had fought Vestapalk. Raid gave Tiktag another mocking sneer and turned, leading his troop into the temple. Tiktag shifted back as they passed. A sickening sensation rose in him. He had found nothing to help his master, but Raid had managed to bring down one of those who had themselves defeated Vestapalk.

Tiktag blinked. Vestapalk’s transformation had begun after his defeat. After his wounding by the human woman, Shara. If anyone would know about the Voidharrow and what it had done to his master, it would be one of her allies.

If Tiktag got a chance to talk to him before Vestapalk took his own revenge.

The kobold raced after Raid, running to keep up, his hunger as forgotten as the rabbit. “Raid!” he called, trying to claim his attention. What he’d do once he had it, Tiktag had no idea, but it would keep him from presenting his prisoner to Vestapalk for a few more moments, at least.

Too late.

Vestapalk’s growing horde looked up as Raid and his monstrous troops entered the ruins. A growl rose from the creatures, escalating into a kind of barking chorus. Raid raised his arms like a hero. The chorus boomed louder. Tiktag’s calls to Raid were lost in it. And where Raid passed, the gathered brutes closed in and followed. Tiktag had to push his way through. Vestapalk’s command still held—no brute had ever threatened Tiktag—but they didn’t defer to him, either. He resorted to dodging between their legs to get ahead.

He managed to push free of the crowd just as Raid entered the ruined courtyard.

Vestapalk’s head was already up. His eyes narrowed sharply at the sight of Raid. Unlike Tiktag, though, the dragon didn’t bother questioning Raid about his unexpected return—his nostrils simply flared and his head swept from side to side as he tested the air.

“I smell an eladrin,” he said, double voice rumbling and chiming at the same time.

Raid dragged his prisoner forward. “Master, I give you Albanon,” he said, and tore off the hood.

It felt like Raid had run him halfway across the Nentir Vale.

Albanon knew it couldn’t really have been that far. He could distinguish night from day beneath the hood Raid had put on him, and while the demon set a punishing pace, dawn had only come once. Albanon’s feet and legs burned, though. Exhaustion was a grindstone slowly wearing him down. Every pause was a moment of relief. And of terror that it might be his last. Blinded by the hood, he had only his ears to tell him what was happening. With nothing to hear but the grunts and growls of Raid and his demon warriors, that was no comfort at all. Raid didn’t even try to talk to him. Not that it would have been much of a conversation—Raid had also forced a gag into Albanon’s mouth to keep him from casting spells.

He certainly didn’t tell the eladrin where they were going, but somewhere during the stumbling, mind-numbing journey, Albanon figured it out. When the ground under his aching feet changed from earth to hard stone and the sounds around him took on the slight echo of walls or something like them, he knew for certain that the next stop really would be his last. They’d entered the ruins of the Temple of Yellow Skulls.

And they weren’t alone. A terrible sound rose around them, beating at Albanon’s weary mind. He’d thought that he was too tired to be frightened anymore. He realized abruptly that he was very wrong. The throats that made the barking, roaring noise weren’t human—at least not anymore. His own captors responded, confirming his fears.

Demons. A lot of them. How many people and beings had Raid infected with the Voidharrow?

The creatures pushing him along stopped. The noise of the crowd paused as well. Something big moved, scraping over stone. Albanon heard a deep snuffling, then—

“I smell an eladrin.”

The voice was strange, as if it were actually two very different beings speaking through one mouth. Albanon didn’t have a chance to listen further. Raid’s heavy hand seized him and dragged him to his side. The demon’s other hand grabbed the hood. “Master,” he cried, “I give you Albanon.”

The hood came off suddenly, so suddenly that after a day of its stifling gloom, even twilight seemed brilliant. Then something shadowed the last of the sun. Albanon gasped into his gag and jerked back against Raid’s grip, exhaustion washed away.

Vestapalk loomed over him. And as much as Albanon had imagined the dragon’s transformation based on Uldane’s description, it seemed his imagination had failed him completely. He should have looked into his nightmares.

The dragon had grown huge, towering over him. His body was even more gaunt than Uldane had described. Red-silver crystals flashed like spurs on his limbs and in twisting veins on his folded wings. It seemed to Albanon that the dragon’s skull had changed, too, becoming longer and narrower. There was something like a predatory bird about him now—no, Albanon realized, like an
insect
, hard and almost alien.

The liquid red crystal of the Voidharrow all but oozed out of him. It squeezed up between his green scales and stained them red. It dripped from his jaws. It filled his eyes—
replaced
his eyes, leaving them shifting pools of crystal.

The … dragon? Demon? Albanon wasn’t sure if Vestapalk was fully one or the other, but his mind wanted to say “dragon” because the alternative was too terrifying. The dragon didn’t look pleased. He bared teeth that were shockingly white against so much red.

“You have one. Where are the others? Where are Shara and Uldane and this priest who defeated you before? Did he defeat you again?”

Raid scowled. “They escaped.”

“They defeated you.” Vestapalk sounded amused. Raid’s scowl deepened.

“They fled rather than face me!” snapped Raid. Vestapalk’s eyes narrowed. Raid seemed to rethink his tone. “But they’ll come to us, Vestapalk. Their type always do. They’ll try to rescue him.”

Albanon wasn’t so certain of that. Shara and Uldane would want to, and deep inside he prayed that they would at least make the attempt. But would Kri let them? He admired the old cleric’s knowledge and cunning and his devotion to the Order of Vigilance. He had a strong feeling, however, that devotion to the Order’s mission took precedence over anything else in Kri’s life. It wouldn’t have taken the others long to realize that he hadn’t died on the road. They’d had more than a day to catch up to Raid and his demons and attempt a rescue. But they hadn’t.

Vestapalk seemed to recognize the same thing. “Why haven’t they tried to rescue him already?”

“Whether they do or not, we gain.” Raid thrust Albanon forward. “Look at him. He fights us. And he’s the first spellcaster I’ve captured. Isn’t he … exceptional?”

Something in the way Raid said “exceptional” left Albanon feeling queasy even beyond his terror. Vestapalk’s head came down. Swirling liquid eyes stared into Albanon’s. Hot breath blew over him. Albanon fought off his terror, trying to deny Vestapalk the satisfaction of seeing him afraid. The dragon hissed and drew back, then stretched out a claw like smoky red glass and stroked it across his belly. His eyes didn’t leave him.

Albanon couldn’t stop the trembling that shook his legs, but he fixed his gaze on Vestapalk’s strange eyes and glared defiance at him. If the gag hadn’t been in his mouth, he might have spit at him.